James Roose-Evans - Biography

Biography

James Roose-Evans was born in London. His brother, Monty, was four years older. He was educated at The Crypt School in Gloucester; where he staged an open-air performance of Shakespeare's Hamlet. Before beginning his eighteen months' National Service in the British Army in November 1946, he made several visits to London theatres, for which he paid by busking in the street. In the Army he worked at the Garrison Theatre, Oswestry (1946), and from 1947 in the Royal Army Education Corps in various parts of Britain and finally in Trieste; where he joined the Roman Catholic Church.

In 1949, he began his studies at Oxford University (from which he graduated in 1957).

In 1954, he joined a repertory company at Bridgewater, Somerset, where his fellow-actor Kenneth Williams encouraged him to try directing. When the company's director fell ill and Roose-Evans took over the direction of St John Ervine's The First Mrs Frazer, he realised how his feeling for dance, literature, painting and theatre all came together in the director's art. Shortly afterwards he secured a job as director at the Maddermarket Theatre, Norwich. The theatre was modelled on an Elizabethan play-house. Here in the 1954-1955 season Roose-Evans directed Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing, Macbeth (in which he also played the lead), John Whiting's A Penny For A Song, Shaw's Pygmalion, Shakespeare's Henry IV Part 1, Gheon's Thde Marriage of St Francis, Wilde's An Ideal Husband and Garcia Lorca's Dona Rosita (for which he visited Granada and received advice from Lorca's friend, Don Jose Navarro).

In 1959, he founded the Hampstead Theatre Club in London, where he served as artistic director until 1971.

In 1974, he founded the Bleddfa Centre, in Powys, for those exploring the relationship between creativity and spirituality.

Roose-Evans has directed, among other projects, The Dumb Waiter (1960), Under Milk Wood, Private Lives (1963), An Ideal Husband, The Seven Year Itch (1984), 84 Charing Cross Road (1981; film version 1984), and Cider with Rosie (1961), the latter two of which he also adapted. Additional playwrighting credits include The Best of Friends (1988), Re: Joyce! (1991), a celebration of the life and career of Joyce Grenfell on which he collaborated with Maureen Lipman. He also edited Darling Ma The letters of Joyce Grenfell to her mother (1997) and The Time of My Life The Wartime Journals of Joyce Grenfell.

Roose-Evans won the London Critics' Circle Theatre Award for Best Director for 84 Charing Cross Road. He is a member of the Royal Society of Arts, the Welsh Arts Council, the Southeast Wales Art Association, and the Welsh Dance Theatre.